Works

We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,
We were melted in the furnace and the pit,
We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,
We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit....

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,
Such as gleam in ancient lore;...

Is man's the only throbbing heart that hides
The silent spring that feeds its whispering tides?
Speak from thy caverns, mystery-breeding Earth,
Tell the half-hinted story of thy birth,...

Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep...

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

I was frightened, for a wind
Crept along the grass to say
Something that was in my mind
Yesterday,

Something that I did not know
Could be found out by the wind,
I had buried it so low...

'Tis no tale of heroism, 'tis no tale of storm and strife,
But of ordinary boozing, and of dull domestic life,
Of the everlasting friction that most husbands must endure,...

Enter JANUS.

Janus. Chronos, Chronos, mend thy pace;
An hundred times the rolling sun
Around the radiant belt has run
In his revolving race.
Behold, behold the goal in sight,...

As a quiet little seedling
Lay within its darksome bed,
To itself it fell a-talking,
And this is what it said:

"I am not so very robust,
But I 'll do the best I can;"...

Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.
...

Friends and loves we have none, nor wealth nor blessed abode,
But the hope of the City of God at the other end of the road.

Not for us are content, and quiet, and peace of mind,...

They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all,
The promise of the waterfall.

Some vague, faint rumor to the vale...

Nature is but the outward vestibule
Which God has placed before an unseen shrine,
The Visible is but a fair, bright vale
That winds around the great Invisible;
The Finite -- it is nothing but a smile...

For mocking on men's faces
He only sees instead
The hidden, hundred traces
Of tears their eyes have shed.

Above their lips denying,
Through all their boasting dares,...

These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)...

A bird bills the selfsame song,
With never a fault in its flow,
That we listened to here those long
Long years ago.

A pleasing marvel is how
A strain of such rapturous rote...

"Willis, I didn't want you here to-day:
The lawyer's coming for the company.
I'm going to sell my soul, or, rather, feet.
Five hundred dollars for the pair, you know."...

Here is the ancient floor,
Footworn and hollowed and thin,
Here was the former door
Where the dead feet walked in.

She sat here in her chair,
Smiling into the fire;
He who played stood there,...

Warrior of the youthful brow,
Eager heart and eagle eye!
Pants thy soul for battle now?
Burns thy glance with victory?
Dost thou dream of conflicts done,
Perils past and trophies won?...

These little Songs,
Found here and there,
Floating in air
By forest and lea,
Or hill-side heather,
In houses and throngs,
Or down by the sea,
Have come together,
How, I can't tell:...